Boeing right to question tanker award to Airbus

Boeing, a longtime mainstay of the Puget Sound's economic engine, has a reputation for quality and a track record of building the world's best commercial and military aircraft. With this in mind, it is right to question the Pentagon's decision to award EADS, parent company of Airbus, and Northrop Grumman the recent $40 billion Air Force tanker contract.

There are enough irregularities and questions to wonder why the Pentagon and Air Force would turn their backs on the most experienced, best-qualified aerospace work force in the world to start from scratch with a foreign-based competitor.

Why did the Air Force indicate a need for a midsized tanker that could land on nearly every military runway around the world and use existing hangers, only to pick a larger design that is too big for many airfields and will need specially constructed hangers?

U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton, questioning Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne in a committee hearing, put it simply, "We were misled."

The answer seems to be that the Air Force changed the request for proposal midstream to accommodate the Airbus plan, then used the new criteria to pick it over the plane that best met our military's needs. The Air Force actually pointed to the larger design of the Airbus tanker as a deciding factor.

There are numerous additional costs this decision will necessitate. The Air Force has yet to confirm the cost of runway improvements or new hanger construction caused by its decision. Any credible estimate of that cost, however, is tens of millions of dollars — perhaps more.

Another issue to explore is operating costs. In a just-released study, Conklin & de Decker, an aviation-information firm, predicts the Air Force could save $30 billion over 40 years by operating a fleet of 179 Boeing KC-767 Advanced Tankers, rather than the Airbus competitor.

As a region, we cannot afford to leave these questions unanswered. The balancing effect of military contracts to support our often cyclical civilian aircraft-production lines is important. The civilian aviation market is much more susceptible to booms and busts than is the military market. Our aerospace workers need work in both the good times and the rough ones — and the award of the Air Force tanker project would have given them just that.

Without the tanker award, the 767 assembly line in Everett will shut down, perhaps as early as 2012. With the award, it will likely continue to 2018 or later and allow the 767 to continue picking up new orders for civilian freighters as the need for midsized reliable freight aircraft continues to grow.

With so many of the suppliers for the 767 based in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, as well as around the state, it is important for the future economic health of both the central Puget Sound region and the entire state of Washington to extend the 767 line as long as possible.

With a Boeing tanker award, the American people would have ended up with a higher-quality, lower-cost product for the U.S. taxpayers and less military spending on infrastructure; plus, we would be keeping primarily American workers working during good times and bad.

With the Airbus win, we are costing the U.S. taxpayers more, putting billions in new investment capital in Europe and keeping primarily European workers working in good times and bad.

With all this in mind, we in this state need to think long term about our economy. While it is true that we here in Washington are in a healthy time compared with much of the country now, there are many factors that, without work on our part, could lead to hard times ahead. A robust aerospace sector in Washington is much more beneficial to the United States than a healthy aerospace sector in France and other European nations, with a small assembly facility in Mobile, Ala.